`Cinderella' Is The Stuff Of Dreams

August 16, 1997|By Hal Boedeker, The Orlando Sentinel.

ANAHEIM — Sure, it will be so nice to have "The Wonderful World of Disney" back where it belongs, on Sunday nights.

But look at the old show now. Big, bold, star-laden and kid-friendly, "Wonderful World" seems determined to reverse ABC's sliding ratings all by itself. "Toy Story" kicks off the series at 6 p.m. Sept. 28.

The lineup through the year's end includes theatrical movies ("The Santa Clause" on Nov. 23) and made-for-TV projects, such as "Toothless" (Oct. 5), with Kirstie Alley as the Tooth Fairy and "Oliver Twist" (Nov. 9), with Richard Dreyfuss as Fagin.

No title, though, is more ambitious than Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella," the third version of the original TV musical.

Julie Andrews played the title role in 1957. Lesley Ann Warren took over in the 1965 remake. And now Brandy, star of Moesha, steps into the glass slipper on Nov. 2.

ABC and Disney took the nation's TV critics to Disneyland last week for a preview with stars Brandy, Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Alexander, Bernadette Peters and others.

Whitney Houston, who is producing the musical with Walt Disney Television, did not appear. But the Grammy-winning singer, who plays the Fairy Godmother, said in a taped greeting that the film "sends a great message to children that dreams do come true and nothing is impossible."

The new "Cinderella," with its multiracial casting, strives to be relevant to modern audiences. At the end, Cinderella thanks her Fairy Godmother for the happy ending. The Fairy Godmother says, "You had it inside you all the time. You didn't need me."

The message: "Every girl is a princess," director Robert Iscove said.

The multiracial casting was important to Houston and executive producer Debra Martin Chase, both of whom are black. As children, both women watched "The Wizard of Oz," "Peter Pan" and "Cinderella" year after year.

"Only as we got older did we realize what the impact of having only white images in these fairy tales meant to us and other kids subliminally," Chase said. This "Cinderella," she hopes, "is reflective of what our society is today."

The music has been updated as well to appeal to modern audiences, and that won the praise of Mary Rodgers, daughter of composer Richard Rodgers. "The songs have the original integrity, but underlying that is this wonderful beat," she said.

The score incorporates three other Rodgers songs: "The Sweetest Sounds," "Falling in Love With Love" and "There's Music in You."

Broadway veteran Peters plays the Wicked Stepmother and sings "Falling in Love" when she teaches her daughters to marry for wealth and not love.

Houston performs "There's Music in You" as an inspirational anthem. "They really needed something that was like `Climb Every Mountain' but wasn't `Climb Every Mountain,' " Rodgers said.

Brandy, whose first album sold 4 million copies, said she had to learn to sing a different way. "It's like the beats are so different, and that was very, very hard for me to learn," she said.

Musical director Chris Montan said the movie strives to update the music "so that a 10-year-old kid today doesn't feel like they're hearing a song from 1954 -- it sounds like a 1998 song."

The movie's budget is three to four times the average for a TV movie, said Disney Telefilms President Charles Hirschhorn. Most of the money went into sets, costumes, special effects and recording costs, said executive producer Craig Zadan.

"So we called our friends and said, `Would you please not only do this show, but we can't really pay you very much money?' " Zadan added. "We begged. We begged."

Alexander said he took the tiny role of the prince's steward for an ulterior motive. He knows the producers have plans for other TV musicals if Cinderella succeeds and wants major roles in those projects.

Goldberg took the queen's part, a small role played by Ginger Rogers in the 1965 version.

As for her singing, she grimaced and said she had apologized to producers while making her recordings. "I'm just glad to have a job, honey," she told critics.

If "Cinderella" succeeds, producers Zadan and Neil Meron hope "Wonderful World of Disney" will let them do a musical per year. They produced the highly successful "Gypsy" with Bette Midler in 1993.

Midler wants to work with them again, and Barbra Streisand would be interested in doing TV musicals, Zadan said. (Zadan and Streisand produced "Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story.")

"We have the talent relationships, so we're delivering the stars," Zadan said. "It's a matter of finding the right property."